Thank you very much for your
letter dated 12 October. I will await the revised version of the
statement with interest.

For the moment I would like to
comment on just one aspect of your letter: "Ignoring only
bad genetic test results is fine, so long as society demands this
degree of risk pooling and accepts the implied costs for
all." I have two comments on this.

First, I do not think this message
comes across in the statement.

Second, what society demands or
accepts can in practice be influenced by what is said by apparent
experts (such as actuaries) who make (wholly spurious) claims
that they have a professional expertise or "science"
which tells society what it should do. Actuaries do this all the
time, almost always for the purpose of promoting the interests of
insurance companies and people who are well, and harming the
interests of people who are sick (or in this case, genetically
disadvantaged). It is this which leads me, reluctantly and sadly,
to the conclusion that the influence of actuaries is generally
malign. The enclosed letter [reproduced below] expounds this in a
little more detail.

Once again, thank you very much
for your reply.

Yours sincerely, RG Thomas

Enclosure with letter dated 18
October 1999 to the Government Actuary

Letter to John Lockyer, original
dated 8 June 1998

J Lockyer Esq

Swiss Reinsurance Co UK Ltd

Swiss Re House

71-77 Leadenhall Street

London EC3A 2PQ.

Dear John

Life insurance,human
genetics, and science

I was very interested to read your
paper for the forthcoming International Congress. Unfortunately I
am not going to be able to attend the Congress and so I am
writing to comment briefly on one aspect, namely the reference to
the views of "Moultrie & Thomas".

If I understand it correctly, the
paper characterises our views as being an example of a belief
that concepts of justice should take precedence over scientific
principles. This is probably one of the more polite things that
might be said about us! But my actual views are not that justice
should take precedence over scientific principles, but rather
that the appeal to "scientific principles" as a
justification for insurance practice is spurious in the first
place.

The essence of science is that it
is positive, and not normative. Science tells us nothing
about how insurance (or any other endeavour) should
be organised; it only predicts what is
likely to happen if we do organise it in particular ways.

I can illustrate this point with
two examples from very different fields. The science of
aeronautics does not tell us how we should build an
aeroplane; it only predicts that certain designs will fly
and others won't. In this example, it is fairly easy for all to
agree that we should build the aeroplane in a way that
allows it to fly, and the distinction I am making is pedantic
(but nevertheless valid).

At the other end of the spectrum,
the science of eugenics does not tell us that we should
sterilise or murder sick and disabled people; it only predicts
how the health of the population may change if we do. In this
example, the distinction I am making is not pedantic, it is quite
crucial.

In terms of its moral
implications, insurance lies somewhere between these two
examples. But the claim that scientific principles dictate
that insurance should be organised in any
particular way misconstrues the essential nature of science.
(The same misinterpretation has, of course, been used in the past
as a (spurious) justification for eugenics and much else
besides.)

I said above that but there is
also a sense in insurance lay somewhere between the examples of
aeronautics and eugenics,which it is fundamentally different from
both. This is that insurance is a social science, not a
physical or biological science.

The point of this distinction is
that in a physical science such as aeronautics, predictions have
no influence on outcomes: predicting that the aeroplane
will or won't fly has no effect on its actual performance. In
a social science such as insurance, however, the act of
prediction may well influence actual outcomes.

For example, if an elite of
well-qualified people endlessly raises public alarm about adverse
selection, and tirelessly predicts that the healthy will (or even
should) be unwilling to subsidise the sick etc. etc.,
their actions make it more likely that these problems will
actually occur. This is the role chosen by much of the actuarial
profession and it means, sadly, that the influence of the
actuarial profession upon the lives of sick and disabled people
in aggregate is unambiguously malign. (I accept that this is not
the intention, but it is usually the effect.)

I hope you have an interesting
discussion of your paper at the Congress.